Shift
by LadyLazarus33
Summary: Even with their combined thoughts and efforts, staying on the needlepoint proved to be more difficult than it appeared to be. More often than not, Eden seemed to be just out of reach. And after a while, time was wearing everyone to the bone. A fragment of stories for The Hellbound Trio and their chances for salvation.


**I DO NOT OWN _THE DIVINE COMEDY_**

_'__It's a comedy,'_ he remembers.

But looking at the thick volume in his hand, the only semblance of warmth in the frigid September air he can't see any happiness within its thin pages. The book was his grandfathers, and his father's before that and so far back it made his head hurt just to think about it. The 18 year sighs, rubbing the book between thin fingers as he makes his way across the Cambridge campus, before he find himself somehow on the ground with the sun staring at him.

"Are you okay?"

The words are sent into the air, but to his brain it doesn't make any sense for a moment as it tries to fix its place back in its skull. The girl smiles, offering a hand to him. He blinks, readjusting his glasses before taking her hand. Now that he has some semblance of balance and focusing in both his brain and body he can look at-

_Her. _

Auburn hair seemed to scorch the air from where the sunlight occasionally peeked out from behind the clouds before disappearing again. Her eyes seemed to follow him as a whole, not even bothering to pick him apart as he was failing to do so with her. His gaze wandered down to his feet when she smirked, tucking a loose strand of pinned back hair behind an ear with intricate piercings. His brow furrowed.

She didn't have shoes.

"Dante, huh?"

His head snapped up to the feeling of her hands grasping the book, looking at her less than suitable attire for the day. Long muddy brown skirt seemed to float on the pavement from where she rocked back and forth on the heels of her bare feet. Her eyes concentrated on the words of each passage.

"Y-yeah." And another furrow when she inhaled the smell of the old white in the epic.

"Oh, wow. Lovely." she muttered, though it was mostly to herself. The books closes shut with a small thud and she hands it back to him. He flinches when her hand grasps his for a moment in a handshake, nails scraping the skin of his wrist.

"It was nice meeting you. Be more careful and watch where you're going ok?" she smiles and it's like the sun decided to concentrate all of its energy onto his eyes. He nods mutely. But before he can find his voice, she's beginning to walk away.

"What your name?" He flinches at how weak he sounds. She turns, head cocked a bit to the left as she looks him over once more.

"Beatrice."

When she opens the door, the smell of smoke is gracing in the air and choking the both of them slowly, not that he cared really. Virgil doesn't even look up when she enters the dorm, placing her bags onto the counter and moving to the fridge.

"If you're going to do that, open a window."

Virgil shrugs, and make no move until she moves over, granting him a slap upside the head and opening the window to the cold air. The Russian Blue curled up on her best friend's chest meows in protest before moving off of him and onto the floor. Rachel rubs her body along Beatrice's legs, purring at the slight semblance of warmth.

"Did you go?" she asks, already knowing the answer, but there's still a part of her that hopes. He got so bad during the colder months, it was a struggle for both of them.

"Go where?" his voice is quiet and sad, tinged with smoke from his cigarette as he brushes off the excess ashes into ashtray by the window already lined with several stubs.

"Damn it, Virgil! _Class_." Her hand slams the fridge shut with a clatter, making the objects on top shake slightly. He takes a final drag and buts it in the ashtray, before emptying the container into the trash can. Beatrice sighs, leaning down to rub Rachel behind the ears and moving over to him on the low couch.

He accommodates to her fairly quickly, and buries his face into her hair with a sigh. Her hand reaches up to rub the left side of his chest, knowing it was hurting…_again_.

"You promised." She mutters and she can nearly feel his regret.

"I know." But the words aren't enough for either of them. They're never enough. The words _I'm-sorry-that-I'm-like-this-please-forgive-me-don't-go-and-leave-me-here-by-myself-I'm-really-trying_ are on his lips but just like every day they never come.

"I met a boy today." She mumbles into the fabric of his shirt. He hums, playing with a strand of her hair and trying to set it on fire with the dim light coming from the window. "I like him."

"You tripped him, didn't you?"

Beatrice only snorts, and concentrates on the faint patterns she can see on his shirt. "No." she stated matter-of-factly. There was a long pauses, as if Virgil knew she was lying, partly. He sadly always did know, however. "Okay, fine, I _didn't _trip him. Just….nearly ran into him." She could feel the facial muscles curling into a smug smile in her hair, and felt the eye roll.

"Who was he?" She shrugged and began to fiddle with the chain on her ear. Not nervously, but, well….she didn't know the feeling.

"Dante. Classy if I must say." She peers up at his face, which had turned back to its original flatness. "You need to go talk to your professors about missing classes."

"It was just one, I'll be fine." He almost growled.

"_Multiple_ classes. You've missed today, yesterday, two days before that and the day before that. Go, now, before I skewer you." She pushed off of him and roughly pulled him up. He grunted in reply but relented and grabbed his messenger bag and began to trudge out the door before she cleared her throat.

_'__Really?' _he thought, moving over to the girl and kissing her cheek before hoisting his bag over his shoulder and moving out into the hall.

* * *

><p><strong>My nerdiness has reached a level that I'm sure Dante himself is rolling in his grave, swearing at me in Italian. We're still in the process of reading <em>Dante's Inferno<em> in school, but me being me had to go and write fanfiction about it. God...my English teacher is going to hate me. :) **

**On with the show! **

**I will probably take this off and revise it, but after this terribly, _terrible_ chapter, I'm probably just going to do a collection of one-shots like in Jigsaw. Give me a one word or one sentence prompt in comments and I'll write about it. Please forgive me for this chapter. I wrote this like a month ago so.. meh. But please leave prompts for me! I will write don't worry. The faster you give me prompts the faster I'll be able to write Chapter 6 Part II...:) Not joking this time. I swear. Scouts honor. **

**READ AND REVIEW _AND GIVE ME PROMPTS. :) _**


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